Whose fault is this?  Industrial pursuits require, above all things, liberty.  Now in the States of the Church all the manufactures of any importance constitute privileges bestowed by the government upon its friends.  Not only tobacco and salt, but sugar, glass, wax, and stearine, are objects of privilege.  Privilege here—­privilege there—­privilege everywhere.  An Insurance Company is established, of course by special privilege.  The very baskets used by the cherry-vendors are the monopoly of a privileged basket-maker.  The Inspector of the Piazza Navona[14] would seize any refractory basket which had failed to pay its tribute to monopoly.  The grocers of Tivoli, the butchers of Frascati, all the retail dealers in the suburbs of Rome, are privileged.  The system of privileges and monopolies is universal, and of course commerce shares the common lot.

Commerce cannot flourish without capital, facilities of credit, easy communication, and, above all, personal safety.  I have shown you what the roads are as to safety.  I have not yet shown you how wretchedly bad and insufficient they are.  Now for a few facts.

In June, 1858, I travelled through the Mediterranean provinces, taking notes as I went along.  I established the fact that in one township the bread cost nearly three-halfpence a pound, while in another, some twelve miles off, it was to be had for a penny.  It follows that the carriage of goods along twelve miles of road cost a farthing a pound.  At Sonnino bad wine was sold for sevenpence the litre, while the same quantity of passable wine might be had at Pagliano, thirty miles off, for twopence halfpenny; so the cost of carrying an article weighing some two pounds for thirty miles was fourpence halfpenny.  Wherever governments make roads, prices naturally find their level.

I may be told that I explored remote and out-of-the-way districts.  If we approach the capital, we find the matters still worse.  The nearest villages to Rome have not roads fit for carriages from one to the other.  What would be said of the French administration, if people could not get from Versailles to St. Germain without passing through Paris?  This, however, has been for centuries the state of things near the Pope’s capital.  If you want a still more striking instance, here it is.  Bologna, the second city in the Pontifical States, is in rapid and frequent communication with the whole world—­except Rome.  It despatches seven mails a week to foreign countries—­only five to Rome.  The letters from Paris arrive at Bologna some hours before those from Rome; the letters from Vienna are in advance of those from Rome by a day and a night.  The Papal kingdom is not very extensive, but it seems to me even too extensive, when I see distances trebled by the carelessness of the Government and the inadequacy of the public works.  As to railways, there are two, one from Rome to Frascati, and one from Rome to Civita Vecchia; but the Adriatic provinces, which